Never let it be said that kenny’s time out of the game has affect his judgement.
1) 3 central defenders on one stoke lone striker
Fantastic tactics as it meant when stoke pumped the ball forwards even if the burly forward won the first ball there were always a couple of centre backs on hand to win the second ball. Totally snuffing out stoke’s aerial threat
2) Playing Johnson and Kelly almost as wingbacks
Ensured there was good width or at least passing options out wide despite using lucas, aurelio, gerrard and meireles through the middle. Johnson is enjoying a return to form and is always direct and Kelly has all but made the right fullback position his own.
3) Aurelio is a gifted footballer who has been held back by injuries. He passes pretty much always find their mark and more often than not will attempt a forward pass rather than a sideways or backwards pass. He sees the entire pitch and makes passes early. If he were stronger (injury wise) he is exactly the type of player we need in the middle of the park and (imho) a superior passer than adam, a player we were going to pay 8m for.
4) Sktrel and agger however much you may not rate them or the forwards they have played against have kept 3 clean in a row and even though carra is now fit again I would not rush carra back into the side. Centre back partnerships take time to gel and each have to learn the strengths and weaknesses of the other. Leave it for now, Kenny, and see how they do.
5) Agger was doing exactly what needs to be done against teams that want to park the bus, commit players. He came forward with the ball and was running so deep into stoke’s half that stoke HAD to break formation to engage him. An absolute fantastic weapon if you have it in your armoury.
6) Kuyt
I give the guy a hard time at wide midfield but he gave a MASTERCLASS of hold up play yesterday, he held the ball up, brought others into play, laid off the ball, dragged defenders away from the attacking midfielders making runs from deep. Utterly, utterly superb. But with that said carrol is our forward now and I still think we need genuine wide players on the flanks. If he is happy to be a squad player, fine, but I doubt kuyt will be happy to sit on the bench in his 30’s.
7) Suarez
Seems a very clever player, making good runs, using trickery to play people in on goal and knowing how to bend his runs to stay on side. The good thing is he looks comfortable pulling wide or dropping deep so there is definitely potential for him to dovetail with carrol and form a devastating partnership. That goal will get taken off him though 😛
8 ) Merieles
what can you say about this player? Passing accuracy and goal threat and he seems to love playing with gerrard (fnar fnar) the guy can’t tackle for shit though and we really need to dismiss the idea of miereles partnering gerrard without a ball winner.
9) Lucas
is really improving with every game, you can see his desire to win 50/50 and also his desire to make runs from deep even though he is the ball winner. His improvement is great to see and I’m sure he’ll improve further to win his place back in the side if (rather, when) Kenny purchases a new holding midfielder.
10) Kenny
A very canny manager. When the mood was dropping around anfield because the team was getting to grips with the formation, Kenny sent suarez to warm up which lifted the crowd and in turn the crowd lifted the players. It’s small things like that which (to me at least) mark him as a special manager who not only feels the mood on the pitch but also the mood in the stands.
He also made the sub of suarez a the right time when aurelio was starting to tire, we lost a bit of momentum going forwards because of aurelio’s passing but soon got into the grove again and killed the game. His tactics were spot and and it’s so good to just enjoy watching good tactics again and apprachate them rather than just picking holes out of the horrendous tactics of hodgson which in the end stopped me posting about them (roy’s tactics) so I guess there was a silverlining to roy’s rubbish tactics :laugh:
I enjoying watching the game again and though the results are fantastic, it’s the performances that give cause for optimising and I can hand on heart say if roy were using these tactics but not getting the results I would have a bit more patience with him because you could see what he is trying to do but the performances AND results were gash. Kenny has transformed a team that was dead on it’s feet v Blackburn (or whatever was roy’s last game) to a team with passion and desire, that is such a ‘fuck you’ to the pundits we tried to make it was the players rather than the bullshit tactics and loser mentaility.
Kudos Kenny 🙂
1) 3 central defenders on one stoke lone striker
Fantastic tactics as it meant when stoke pumped the ball forwards even if the burly forward won the first ball there were always a couple of centre backs on hand to win the second ball. Totally snuffing out stoke’s aerial threat
2) Playing Johnson and Kelly almost as wingbacks
Ensured there was good width or at least passing options out wide despite using lucas, aurelio, gerrard and meireles through the middle. Johnson is enjoying a return to form and is always direct and Kelly has all but made the right fullback position his own.
3) Aurelio is a gifted footballer who has been held back by injuries. He passes pretty much always find their mark and more often than not will attempt a forward pass rather than a sideways or backwards pass. He sees the entire pitch and makes passes early. If he were stronger (injury wise) he is exactly the type of player we need in the middle of the park and (imho) a superior passer than adam, a player we were going to pay 8m for.
4) Sktrel and agger however much you may not rate them or the forwards they have played against have kept 3 clean in a row and even though carra is now fit again I would not rush carra back into the side. Centre back partnerships take time to gel and each have to learn the strengths and weaknesses of the other. Leave it for now, Kenny, and see how they do.
5) Agger was doing exactly what needs to be done against teams that want to park the bus, commit players. He came forward with the ball and was running so deep into stoke’s half that stoke HAD to break formation to engage him. An absolute fantastic weapon if you have it in your armoury.
6) Kuyt
I give the guy a hard time at wide midfield but he gave a MASTERCLASS of hold up play yesterday, he held the ball up, brought others into play, laid off the ball, dragged defenders away from the attacking midfielders making runs from deep. Utterly, utterly superb. But with that said carrol is our forward now and I still think we need genuine wide players on the flanks. If he is happy to be a squad player, fine, but I doubt kuyt will be happy to sit on the bench in his 30’s.
7) Suarez
Seems a very clever player, making good runs, using trickery to play people in on goal and knowing how to bend his runs to stay on side. The good thing is he looks comfortable pulling wide or dropping deep so there is definitely potential for him to dovetail with carrol and form a devastating partnership. That goal will get taken off him though 😛
8 ) Merieles
what can you say about this player? Passing accuracy and goal threat and he seems to love playing with gerrard (fnar fnar) the guy can’t tackle for shit though and we really need to dismiss the idea of miereles partnering gerrard without a ball winner.
9) Lucas
is really improving with every game, you can see his desire to win 50/50 and also his desire to make runs from deep even though he is the ball winner. His improvement is great to see and I’m sure he’ll improve further to win his place back in the side if (rather, when) Kenny purchases a new holding midfielder.
10) Kenny
A very canny manager. When the mood was dropping around anfield because the team was getting to grips with the formation, Kenny sent suarez to warm up which lifted the crowd and in turn the crowd lifted the players. It’s small things like that which (to me at least) mark him as a special manager who not only feels the mood on the pitch but also the mood in the stands.
He also made the sub of suarez a the right time when aurelio was starting to tire, we lost a bit of momentum going forwards because of aurelio’s passing but soon got into the grove again and killed the game. His tactics were spot and and it’s so good to just enjoy watching good tactics again and apprachate them rather than just picking holes out of the horrendous tactics of hodgson which in the end stopped me posting about them (roy’s tactics) so I guess there was a silverlining to roy’s rubbish tactics :laugh:
I enjoying watching the game again and though the results are fantastic, it’s the performances that give cause for optimising and I can hand on heart say if roy were using these tactics but not getting the results I would have a bit more patience with him because you could see what he is trying to do but the performances AND results were gash. Kenny has transformed a team that was dead on it’s feet v Blackburn (or whatever was roy’s last game) to a team with passion and desire, that is such a ‘fuck you’ to the pundits we tried to make it was the players rather than the bullshit tactics and loser mentaility.
Kudos Kenny 🙂
